wires for trailer brake controller '24 Ranger?

[ElectronNinja]

Thats what I was told too. but when I bought the 72hr access to the ford service manuals and stuff. and Entered my vin for the stuff related to my truck, the wiring diagrams show the connector should be on the harness. I was also told my truck was not wired for heated mirrors/mirror turn signals/the puddle lights... yet my truck is prewired to the mirror plug for all. I circled the heated mirror wire. so Im hoping its in the dash. I did have the dash apart, but theres no room to get at the harness to see if its tapped to the main harness. when I get time, I want to haul the radio out to get better access.

The TRM and the TBM are the one unit, per the ford service manuals. so if we got the ITBC plug, we can enable the options to activate it

Id be curious as well. Especially considering 2025s have it as an added drop in option, and later build 2024 may indicate a change late in the year.


From what I've got, the TBM (ie the switch) is supposed to communicate with the TRM (control module) over LIN bus, which is why we nominally have two different dash wire harness part numbers. Ford doesn't want techs splicing ever, so it makes sense basic tow kits would have a plug and play connector you can drop a RedArc or whatever onto and have the BCM driven brake status and brake control line to the 7pin connector.

Now what would be really interesting, is if the part numbers for adv tow pack and basic tow packs have the same TRM. That means it's just a Forscan flash away from enabling trailer brake control in the TRM. As for the TBM, if the wiring harness doesn't provide the pins, it means you'd have to run cable then between the TRM and added TBM.

Because my thought is, even if that trailer brake control plug is there on basic tow trucks, and we can just plug a TBM in and forscan flash....then there has to be the brake control line from the TRM going to the plug out back.

From what we saw earlier, I think the consensus was that the brake line was missing from the TRM, and instead was sitting on the accessory connector for someone to plug in their own brake controller.

I'm an electrical engineer by trade and work closely with the techs in the high-bay on embedded systems and wire harnesses. I'm all for disassembling my dash (I'm already going to swap the Lariat dash in...sucks ford charges a core charge on it though).

Repining some connectors and running a signal wire or two sounds like an easy exchange to have the factory TBM.

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[ShadowDragon24]

Id be curious as well. Especially considering 2025s have it as an added drop in option, and later build 2024 may indicate a change late in the year.


From what I've got, the TBM (ie the switch) is supposed to communicate with the TRM (control module) over LIN bus, which is why we nominally have two different dash wire harness part numbers. Ford doesn't want techs splicing ever, so it makes sense basic tow kits would have a plug and play connector you can drop a RedArc or whatever onto and have the BCM driven brake status and brake control line to the 7pin connector.

Now what would be really interesting, is if the part numbers for adv tow pack and basic tow packs have the same TRM. That means it's just a Forscan flash away from enabling trailer brake control in the TRM. As for the TBM, if the wiring harness doesn't provide the pins, it means you'd have to run cable then between the TRM and added TBM.

Because my thought is, even if that trailer brake control plug is there on basic tow trucks, and we can just plug a TBM in and forscan flash....then there has to be the brake control line from the TRM going to the plug out back.

From what we saw earlier, I think the consensus was that the brake line was missing from the TRM, and instead was sitting on the accessory connector for someone to plug in their own brake controller.

I'm an electrical engineer by trade and work closely with the techs in the high-bay on embedded systems and wire harnesses. I'm all for disassembling my dash (I'm already going to swap the Lariat dash in...sucks ford charges a core charge on it though).

Repining some connectors and running a signal wire or two sounds like an easy exchange to have the factory TBM.

I am interested too. this is what I saw in Forscan, and why I want to dive into the dash and say its there. it says my early build 25(February) has the trailer brake module already, so I should have the lin connector. then I just need to enable the brake controller if I have the connector. when I tried looking, there was not enough room in the dash support to get to the harness where the ford wiring diagram says it should be(per my vin)

 

[ElectronNinja]

So tearing the dash apart, very late 24MY build, don't have the LIN/TBM connector visible in the area. Toss another confirmation that there's two harnesses on even late year 24s.

Now that wouldn't preclude on it's own, changing the module, adding the switch, and running the LIN cable and moving some wires from the trailer accessory plug.

The catch I was looking at would be powering the switch. The plug that goes to it is a 4 wire with pwr/gnd/LIN/and illumination.

So TLDR, on paper, if we could sort out the lines that go to the switch, then you could swap TRM modules, repin some wires, and make it go.

What's kooky is for MY2025, ONLY the XL from what I can tell gets the weird option of the factory trailer brake comtroller. XLTs and others you have to get the advanced tow pack. Which brings up weird thoughts like "does the XL now get a weird third harness part number?? Does the XL lose compatibility with aftermarket controllers?".

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